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January 10 through February 10 marks the “dead of winter.” Today is my mother’s birthday. Today is also the day both my grandfather and my great-grandfather died, 9 years apart, the husband and the father of my grandmother (whose birthday was January 10). My grandfather had a heart attack after shoveling snow and I can barely remember how my great-grandfather passed away, most likely old age. The eerie significance of dates and time, the superstitious Hungarian in me wonders what is the connection for my family? I feel tied to this day. When I think of February, it’s usually dark and full of snow, no hints of warmer weather. Promises of spring still 6 weeks away.

So strange! Reminds me of wandering through a cemetery at a castle in England in 1999 and finding a family plot in which four babies from the family all died on the same day (February 14), ranging in age from four months to five years old. I wondered in that moment if the mother or father had a hand in their deaths; what was the significance of that date? And what did their extended family think when they started to notice a pattern….

I wonder those things as well — what is the story when people die at the same time? I’m always looking for connections. I just discovered the actual timeframe for the ‘dead of winter’ period and I started getting totally freaked out when I started comparing it to family history.